The province's Special Investigations Unit found no wrongdoing by Huron County OPP officers after a 35-year-old man suffered an overdose while in police custody.
According to the report from the provincial police watchdog, the man was arrested in Goderich on Canada-wide warrants and taken to the Clinton detachment around 1:30 a.m. on May 31, 2026.
The SIU noted that the officers body camera footage showed the suspect was searched incident to arrest, and again when he was booked into custody.
However, around 2:15 a.m., the man was seen hunched over the sink and toilet area. Police removed him from his cell and conducted a search, where officers found a plastic bag with narcotic residue in his sock. The man admitted it was cocaine, then shortly after, became unresponsive and had a seizure.
Officers administered two doses of naloxone and called paramedics. The man was taken first to Seaforth Hospital, then Stratford due to the severity of the overdose.
SIU Director Joseph Martino wrote that there was no basis for criminal charges against the officers.
"The fact that the Complainant was lodged in cells while in possession of drugs and subsequently able to ingest them is subject to scrutiny. However, that would not appear the result of any markedly substandard care on the part of the police," he wrote. "The Complainant had been searched twice - once at the scene following the arrest and then back at the detachment prior to being lodged in a cell... A strip search might have located the drugs. However, the circumstances known to officers at the time did not provide grounds for such a search."
Martino also noted the man was not arrested for drug-related charges and did not appear to be under the influence when processed.
